Is Raf OK? -- Installment #68
2024-01-09 -- Tel Aviv
Tags: 7 Min Core Content; 15 Min w/Links; Relief Area!
Clarification
Yesterday I shared a post from Israeli news:
Hostages: 121 returned to Israel; 37 soldiers; 136 remaining in captivity
A reader asked: What is the soldier count?
I thought it was Israel keeping the count of soldier and civilian hostages separate. But, at least at the moment, I can’t confirm this. The best I can do is quote from a recently updated Washington Post piece:
The Israeli Prime Minister’s office said Friday that 132 hostages remained in Gaza and that 25 of them were confirmed dead, bringing the estimated number of living hostages to 107. Israel includes hostages who were killed, with their bodies still held by Hamas, in its count.
Dept. of Hope
Normal-iz-ation?
Several European airlines are restarting service to Israel in a few weeks. The Lufthansa group started up a week or two ago.
Peace Groups Persist!
Netta Ahituv wrote in Haaretz (PDF here) about the group Standing Together, and their efforts to build a better shared society.
From The Front
How many fronts are there? Three!
Count em: Gaza; The Lebanon Border; and Eilat (which the Iran-aligned Houthis are launching missiles and drones at).
No, wait, it’s five! Syria (where the Israeli Air Force has been active for weeks) and the West Bank (where loads of Hamas terrorists have been killed or arrested).
(Let’s leave Iraq and Iran to the U.S. for the time being.)
In Syria and Lebanon, the Israeli air force gives no advance warning of attacks. (Anyone protesting this? No. Because the protests are an extension of a propaganda machine with a veneer of human-centered compassion. Think social-media driven politics was just the 2016 U.S. presidential race?)
Gaza (the "Southern Front"): On The Ground with the IDF
Journalist Anshel Pfeffer spent 24 hours with an IDF unit in Gaza City. (5 minute read, in English)
The Northern Front: Tour Ethnically Cleansed Northern Israel
Gideon Levy visits Kiryat Shmona, Kibbutz Dafna and Kibbutz Dan. (5 minute read, in English)
Yoni's January 8 Update (excerpt)
Yesterday our brigade completed its operation in Khirbet Ikhza’a. After more than two weeks of battle, battalion after battalion wrapped up its mission and came back to the Israeli side of the fence.
The colonel who commands our brigade was there when the gate was closed. He spoke to us in the afternoon about the singular focus of the operation - the goal that was paramount for each of us, even though on paper there were several objectives. ‘Crossing the fence,’ he said, ‘the first thing I saw was the town of Nir Oz. And the first thing I thought of was that when the residents of Nir Oz are finally ready to come home, they will look across at where we were, and it will be clear how much we’ve changed their reality. And they will feel safer than they have for a long, long time.’
He paused, then added one more thing: ‘I must admit I’m also a bit emotional at the knowledge that we were able to complete this operation without losing anyone.’
Later, my team debriefed in a smaller forum. Our officer - coated in two weeks of scruff and grime - spoke to the importance of not only the operation itself, but the fact that we had been thorough, extending the operation until it had reached its goals. ‘Ultimately,’ he said, ‘what we want to avoid is our children having to come back here and continue what we failed to accomplish.’
I’ve been thinking quite a lot about the extent to which those fighting this war are of one mind, despite differences that range from the political to the religious and everything in between. A friend who was released last week, but has had several emergency call-ups over the years, wrote about the ‘weeks to months that it takes reservists to adjust from the unity of the front to the debates and differences within Israeli society.’
I know there are some - especially those who get their news from international media - who worry that the unity of the front stems from a worrying shift to the right. That soldiers, en masse, are getting carried away with the intensity of battle, and will drive Israeli society to a more aggressive and anti-Palestinian stance than ever before. For the record: I don’t think that’s the case. And while I have my opinions about Gaza, and my focus is on ensuring the safety and well-being of Israel’s citizens, I reserve a place in my heart and mind for the tragedy that is befalling innocent Palestinians caught in between two aggressors. Whose circumstances have left them no better option than to rely on the morality of the IDF.
Because that morality remains stronger than ever. It was that morality that led our unit to scrutinize a group of Palestinians in our sights last week. Could we be sure of which had just launched rockets at our families? Were we certain we could discern the aggressors from bystanders? We could not. And so we chose, yet again, to let terrorists survive another day rather than take even one innocent life.
No; I don’t think shifting politics are the reason for our unity.
I think it’s because, by virtue of putting on our uniforms, we are acknowledging that we share the same top priority. We never disagree on what comes first. We have struggling businesses, semesters that we cannot catch up on, traumatized children, exhausted spouses, lonely partners, stalled careers, emotional and mental strain - but all of those come second. There is one top priority: restoring a sense of safety to the citizens of Israel. To a larger extent, to the Jewish people around the world. And most of all, to the residents of Israel’s south, who have felt forsaken for almost 20 years. For whom bomb shelters scattered around every bus stop and nursery school was a fact of life. A reality which we now know inevitably led to their becoming the sites of massacres.
Our singular focus distinguishes us from the rest of the world - but in some ways even from the rest of the population. During a recent briefing - after the second or third time that week that our unit was ambushed by an RPG attack - one of our officers spoke to the bigger picture. ‘Society,’ he said, ‘and especially the media, tend to focus on losses. On casualties. On injuries and deaths. But let us not forget everything else. Our unit has accomplished a tremendous amount during this operation. We have reached our goals, and they will be felt for a long time. A tragic but ultimately small part of that operation has been casualties. We will embrace our injured and their families, we will do everything in our power to accompany them on their journey back to health, or wherever it may lead. But the injuries are not our story. There is a bigger picture. Let us not devalue our efforts - or our casualties - by determining the success of our operation against the losses incurred along the way.’
And yet - the day will come when this war ends. And in all likelihood I will be home before that conclusion. And so I am trying - when I can - to remind myself of those other perspectives, of the experiences of others that have been so different from mine over the last three months.
I glance, briefly, at the NYTimes headlines. Often enough to understand what the world claims is going on. Often enough to ‘get the joke’ when, in the process of creating a summary of our operational successes, when someone called out ‘what are these summaries for??’ the sarcastic reply was ‘the Hague.’
I read the Facebook post of a friend whose anger at what he believes is happening to Palestinians is only matched by his sense of stigma and alienation were he to speak publicly about it. And one of another friend, whose faith in coexistence was shattered by a poll showing 72% of Gazans support Hamas and the massacre they perpetrated on October 7th. Both of these are perspectives I will encounter on ‘the day after.’
I listened closely to the story of a soldier new to our unit. She looked to be 20, long nails, stenciled eyebrows, piercings everywhere. She softly spoke about a guy she had gone on one or two dates with, before deciding to surprise him at the Nova music festival. When rockets started falling one of their group started to panic so they jumped in the car to drive away. On their way down the road they passed more than fifty terrorists spraying bullets in every direction. A few bullets hit their car, and this guy she had barely dated leaned forward protectively, literally talking a bullet for her. Her efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. And now she was here, three months later, in a minor role helping coordinate convoys but with a world of emotion and pain hidden underneath.
I try to understand the experience of others.
Relief Area
Alef
Bet
I am reading Sovietistan by Erika Fatland. I love it. Not as strong as Second Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich, but still a blast for an old Sovietologist like yours truly.
Stay well,
Raf
(Thank you A.K.)